Kingdom Hearts Online
by The Unplanner
Summary: An alternate path of my "Time Break" AU. Sora misread the hint in that white box, so Riku and Lambda try to pass the time during his second sweep of KH2 with some world-hopping of their own. When the Heartless follow their tracks to ALfheim Online, though, their vacation in virtual reality turns dangerous. Complete.
1. Link Start!

**Kingdom Hearts Online**

 **Chapter 1: "Link Start!"**

 _A/N: This is a side story to my Time Break AU, so it was originally posted in_ Blue Skies _. However, it's turned into a multi-chapter affair in its own right, so I've made a new story for it._

 _Summary: While Sora, Donald, and Goofy are doing their second sweep of the worlds to try and stop Organization XIII, Riku and Lambda take a separate path that leads them to ALfheim Online. Unfortunately, the Heartless have followed them to this newly-connected world, and it's up to this weird crossover pair to save the game. Takes place about a year before the Fairy Dance Arc of_ Sword Art Online.

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 _Twilight Town: Computer Room..._

Our heroes had nothing to do, and about a week of time to kill before Sora finished re-sweeping the various worlds for an entrance to Organization XIII's stronghold. Of course, Riku and Lambda already knew where that entrance was-in the Twilight Town simulation, of which only the relevant rooms were still maintained-but their efforts to clue Sora in with an obvious box of clues had failed, or at least had a delayed reaction. Donald even ate the Sea-Salt Ice Cream bar that was supposed to help them guess the password!

Riku suggested forming a Dark Corridor to a random world. The only certainty was that it would take them somewhere they'd never heard of. Lambda agreed; it wasn't time to meet Sora yet, and they had a better chance of not running into him by accident if they didn't retrace either party's steps at all.

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 _ALfheim Online: A forest clearing on the edge of Sylph territory..._

The Dark Corridor formed, and the pair of travelers stepped out. Almost immediately, Lambda could tell this world was different from the rest. She could practically see the computer code that generated their surroundings. And that wasn't all.

She nudged Riku's shoulder. "Riku, I think we're in a virtual reality game."

Riku's expression showed he had no clue what Lambda was talking about. "A what?"

"This whole world is part of a game running on a really powerful computer. People log in to 'ALfheim Online' from wherever the 'real' world is to experience a different world, since apparently human-sized fairies, swords, and magic are uncommon in their reality," Lambda explained.

Riku nodded. "Sounds cool! Does that mean there's some sort of heroic quest to complete that someone thought up?"

Lambda shrugged. "Sort of. A lot of people are supposed to log into this world at once, and they all have to form alliances and compete with each other to find the quests, monsters, and loot first. Then I guess more quests get added by whoever runs the game, and people can trade the loot around."

"How do you know all this?" Riku asked.

"Well, I..." Uh-oh. "I think the system just caught onto the data link I used to figure this out. It's trying to decide if I'm an information pixie...or a foreign object."

Riku hesitantly asked, "What happens to foreign objects?"

Lambda gulped. "They get deleted. I'm not sure if it can do that to us, but I'm not about to test it. I'd much rather be an 'information pixie', whatever that... Oh." Lambda suddenly began shining brightly, and when she was fully obscured, the glow started shrinking.

When the light show faded, Lambda was only about as tall as Riku's fist, though she still looked mostly the same. She still wore her black bodysuit and white cape, but her red eyes were somewhat larger than usual compared to her face, and she had translucent, white wings, like holograms. They were shaped like dragonfly wings, but curled on the ends like flower petals, and held her aloft at the level of Riku's chest despite having no apparent substance to them. Her whole body glowed faintly. "Huh. I guess this is what a pixie looks like," Lambda remarked in a relatively calm tone, partly because her capacity to worry about weirdness had been exceeded several worlds ago.

"Weird. Will anything like that happen to me?" Riku's expression was a mix of concern and alarm.

"No, the system thinks you're a player, though there's a few points that don't line up. Your race is apparently 'Spriggan,' but not only are we nowhere near Spriggan territory, your avatar hasn't changed at all. You don't have the customary black hair or wings, so it might be better to just not bother pretending to be a player _or_ a Spriggan."

Riku latched on to one part of that explanation. "Wait, players get wings?"

Lambda nodded and flew up to Riku's eye level (in Ansem's body). "Yes, sort of like these. Players can fly with them, but you don't need wings to fly, remember? Wait, you'd better test that."

Riku nodded and floated off the ground with the Power of Darkness. "Okay, that still works."

Lambda gave Riku an examining look. "The system's treating this like the normal flight mechanic, with the maximum skill level. If you try to fly for more than ten minutes, the game will try to make you fall." Lambda's expression became worried. "Remember, we're technically invading hackers, so if the game thinks we're breaking the rules, it'll try to delete your account and my role, and then what?"

"I'll try to keep a low profile, then," Riku reassured his girlfriend-turned-pixie. Lambda's worried expression didn't go away, though. "Hey, Lambda? What's wrong?"

"Nothing serious, it's just...forget it." Lambda waved off Riku's question.

Riku made to grab hold of Lambda, then realized that grabbing her shoulder wouldn't work the same when she was so tiny. "If you're unhappy, then it's serious to me. Please, could you tell me what's wrong?"

Lambda didn't miss Riku's aborted motion, which fed into the problem. "It's stupid, really. You said it was 'weird' when I turned into a pixie. Do I look weird?"

Riku was taken aback for a second. Normally, his girlfriend was more concerned with how well she could fight than how she appeared. Then again, in this form... No, the important thing was reassuring Lambda right now. "No, Lambda, you don't look weird. That form's actually pretty cute."

Lambda blinked. Did her hearing just glitch up? Riku was an awesome warrior of Darkness and all-around badass, who wore a black hood over the face he'd stolen from his arch-enemy just for the added intimidation factor more than any sort of stealth, but did _her_ Riku just say the word _cute?_ "Do you really mean it? I guess I might be cute. I can't really tell without a mirror." Lambda started leaning around to look herself over.

"Oh shoot, did I just say that out loud? There goes my tall, dark, mysterious image." Riku facepalmed, and Lambda giggled at him.

"Don't worry, I won't tell anyone. Anyway, I can live with being less than a foot tall for a while. I'll be pretty useless in combat, though..." Lambda tested out her strength by flexing her arms, then giggled more sheepishly when she realized how silly she must look.

Riku chuckled along with Lambda. "Good to hear you're back to normal. It's not like you to worry about how you look. But what's an information pixie supposed to do, then?"

Lambda blushed a little, making her look even cuter...though Riku would only say so over his dead body. "I was more worried about how _you_ think I look. Sure, I'm a sword-shooting death machine, but I have insecurities sometimes, like anyone else. Anyway, in this form, I have a wide-range map of the area, and access to the tutorial programs. I'd better run you through those. First off, raise your left index finger in front of you, and then swipe it downward."

Riku did as instructed, and a line of holographic circles formed a trail behind the motion. Lambda continued, "This is the main menu. Get used to that motion, because practically everything in this world relies on it. For right now, touch this button here..." Lambda flitted over to point at one of the circles with a backpack-shaped silhouette, "...to check your inventory. If I'm right, you'll need to do that to summon your weapon without being noticed by the system."

Riku opened the inventory sub-menu, which raised a stack of labeled rectangles. Black Coat (full outfit, [equipped]), Soul Eater (custom enchanted sword, wakizashi type), Potion (3 doses), and one other... "What's this 'Way to Dawn' thing? Aside from my personal philosophy, I mean."

Lambda peeked at that option and made a guess, hoping she was correct. "Judging from the custom icon next to it, you should equip that thing _right now_."

Riku touched the option with his left index finger, causing a flash and a swirl of blue energy around his right hand. He now held what was clearly a Keyblade! The **Way to Dawn** Keyblade took much of its motif from Riku's Soul Eater, but the demonic wing that formed the blade was more triangular and straight than the curved edge of Riku's previous sword. It also had a white angel wing attached to the tip to serve as the Keyblade's teeth, and two more angel wings in white and gray-blue surrounded the handle to form the hand-guard. A chain dangled from the pommel, ending in a Keychain charm shaped like the Heartless Emblem.

Riku gazed at the weapon in wonder. "I almost forgot we got this Keychain in Castle Oblivion... Sorry, just give me a second to let this all catch up with me. I have a Keyblade. I have a _Keyblade!_ " Ah, there came the rush of relief and joy he was expecting. "This is awesome! I finally have a Keyblade!"

Lambda looked closely, with all her Observation protocols active, and came to the unfortunate conclusion that something was just...incomplete about the weapon. "I _hope_ you have a Keyblade, but this might just be another item to ALO. I think it'll work just as well as the real thing while we're here, at minimum. Think of it as a sneak preview, as well as practice for when you get to switch to using this for real."

Riku smirked. "Well, I'm still going to jump for joy all the way to town. If the system running this world thinks I have a Keyblade already, it probably means I _can_ get one eventually. I'll probably get this exact one, and the design is a perfect fit for me. I'm so glad you were right about that all along."

"Yeah. I wish I had a Keyblade. I'll have to make do with Murakumo for the foreseeable future. Not that being 'stuck' with a Nox Nyctores is a downside in any way. It could be better, but that logic applies to everything." Lambda fondly recalled drafting a speech to precede beating down Relius Clover, but she probably couldn't pull it off without a Keyblade of her own.

Riku realized something. "It seems kind of out of place, though. All the legends say the Keyblade tends to appear right in the middle of huge crises, but I don't see a crisis around here, do you?"

"Uh, I think I do." Lambda pointed at a Shadow Heartless that was forming nearby, alongside about a dozen other Heartless of various types. "The system has no records of anything like the Heartless, so I think this is the first time they've shown up here. I'd like to believe they can be deleted as outsiders by the system, but DiZ's computer certainly couldn't do that, nor could it stop them from coming in."

"Well, I'm pretty sure I know what _can_ stop them." Riku smirked as he settled into his favored combat stance, taking note of how it worked with the Keyblade and adjusting his footing to compensate for the slightly greater weight of the weapon's extra parts. "We can't just leave the world like this. I guess I'll have to find the Keyhole, and seal the breach when we leave." Riku took out all the Heartless in this group with even greater ease than usual, but he knew there would be others.

Lambda nodded and flew over to Riku when the battle ended. "It _is_ our fault that they're here. Making a Corridor of Darkness to a new world may not have been the best idea after all."

Riku gasped as he realized the ramifications of his actions. "Shoot, I might as well have rolled out a red carpet and posted directions! I hope I can fix this as fast as Sora usually does."

Lambda held onto Riku's hand with both of hers. "I'll be here, too...sort of. I wish I could help you fight, but like this..."

Riku dismissed the Keyblade, then checked his menu to make sure it was properly back in his inventory. "Don't worry about it, Lambda; I'm not mad at all." Lambda smiled gratefully and flew around behind his head. "I might be jealous if you just found a comfy spot back there to sit in for the rest of our stay, though," Riku called out as Lambda settled into the pocket formed by his Black Coat's hood.

"Whoa, this _is_ pretty comfy! Who would have guessed that those Organization guys walk around with a luxury hammock around their necks?" Lambda kicked her feet over the edge of the hood as she laid on her back.

Riku laughed sarcastically. "Very funny, Lambda. You're the one with the map; where do you think the Keyhole would be?"

Lambda checked with the system to access the maps. "Let's see... I bet it would be at the most important place in the world, so if it's anywhere, it's at the World Tree. We can see it from here, actually, if we go above the trees. Getting there is another matter; it's not very close, and we can't risk using a Dark Corridor and calling the system and the Heartless down on us. The fastest way to get to the center of the continent where it is would be through the cave to the north, since these mountains exceed the altitude limit for flight." Riku didn't move; Lambda could practically feel the disapproval and impatience rolling off him. "Fine, I'll get out of this comfy hammock and lead you there."

Lambda flew out of Riku's hood and waved him over to one end of the clearing, then led him to the mouth of a cave in the side of a cliff. "This leads to a huge underground tunnel network. Since it's the best way to get from this half of the continent to the center, the tunnels are neutral territory, so we hopefully won't have to deal with any players who want to force us out, but be ready for local random monsters. That said, you won't be able to pass for a player, and I doubt you want to repeat the same sentence over and over to fake being an NPC. I hope you have an alibi to keep the world order intact."

Riku nodded. "I've had a lot of time to think one up." With a smirk, he continued, "Then again, nobody seems to bat an eye at Donald or Goofy when they go to all kinds of worlds with Sora. You'd think those guys would stick out more obviously than Sora's giant shoes, but they always get away with saying they're 'just passing through'. Maybe there's some sort of force that prevents locals from recognizing outsiders right away. I can do better than to rely on that, though." He followed the faint glow surrounding Lambda into the cave.

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 _A/N: Here's where the rabid plotbunny that forced me to write this side arc removed its carrot from my throat. If anyone wants to hear the rest, tell me so! I'm pretty sure I can finish this as a mini-series within Blue Skies._


	2. What Am I Worried About?

**Kingdom Hearts Online**

 **Chapter 2: "What Am I Worried About?"**

 _A/N: Let's all say a big thank-you to FierceDeityMask, who agreed to breathe down my neck until I finish this whole side-arc. I also have a few bubbles of inspiration rising up for the next chapter of Silver Linings._

 _There may be a few differences between this and the way the anime worked. The episodes and the wiki can only tell me so much, and I made a few changes for story purposes._

 _To avoid confusion, I've decided this takes place a while before the events of SAO episode 15, during the year that ALO and SAO existed simultaneously. So the parts Kirito should be there for aren't happening yet._

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 _Entering the tunnel maze..._

Riku noticed a problem after walking for about ten feet. "There aren't any light sources in this tunnel. How do people find their way through?"

Lambda listed a few obvious ways, counting them up on her fingers. "Well, there's a Torch item. People planning to go through here generally have a chance to stock up."

Riku sighed. "Too bad those are _other_ people."

Lambda nodded, visible from her own glow in the pitch-black tunnel. "Secondly, there are spells to create light or see in the dark without light."

"There's magic in this game? Wait, 'see in the dark'... I just remembered something..." Riku recalled having to put up with a lot of stress while blindfolded. And to deal with that, he trained himself to... "Good, my dark-sense still works. Navigating these tunnels will be way easier than fighting Roxas with a blindfold on was."

Lambda raised a hand for a high-five, but Riku had to do a sort of finger flick on his part to match Lambda's tiny palm. "Nice thinking, Riku! Luckily, smell is a perfectly valid sense in the game, so there won't be any objections from the system against finding your way around by your nose. By the way, you should probably hear about the magic system."

Riku was beginning to see a pattern here. "Will I be able to trick the system into thinking my spells are local spells?"

Lambda shook her head, causing her long braid to sway back and forth. "Sorry, not this time. The magic in this game is based on a unique language created specifically for ALO, so you cast spells by saying the proper incantations. They can get pretty long, too; it's not like you can just point your Keyblade and yell 'Fire'. Or 'Dark Barrage', for that matter."

Riku winced; half of his combat options just went down the drain. "Ouch. That's probably going to be the biggest restriction on what I can do in here."

Lambda started floating down the tunnel again, signaling that they should walk and talk instead of just standing there. "Well, I suppose if you could figure out the description for your moves and got an opening to say it in the Words of Power, then it would still work. Of course, the monsters would never leave you alone long enough to do that unless you had someone to keep them off you. Stupid half-foot-tall pixie form keeping me from helping..."

Lambda trailed off into nonsensical grumbling, then caught herself and got back on topic. "Luckily, you don't have to call your attacks for physical sword skills, although you _can_ if you think it looks cool - I sure think so. I'm pretty sure you can still do the ordinary version of Maelstrom and any other neat combat moves you have. This game doesn't have a list of sword skills built in, so you're supposed to actually figure out how to fight with a sword while flying. Good thing we spent the last month doing...I'll call it 'applied research' in that field."

Riku went through the motions of his favorite combo without summoning Way to Dawn. "I like that metaphor! I guess I'll be okay in battle, but is there any way I can learn these Words of Power? Just curious."

"There's a full dictionary in your menu for the Words involved in spells, along with a few examples of the basic spells available to all races. You can cast them based on your MP gauge, like any other player. If you want anything better than the absolute basics, though, you have to figure out what phrases work through trial and error." Lambda suddenly stopped moving forwards, and was flattened up against Riku's chest when he kept going. "Oof! My fault, sorry. Speaking of trials, I stopped because there are monsters up ahead. A _lot_ of them."

Riku stopped walking to let Lambda get off his chest. "What kind of monsters are we talking about?"

"I can't be sure because the scanning protocols provided by the system aren't half as good as my own, but I'm pretty sure they're fairly ordinary bats."

As he equipped Way to Dawn, Riku wondered, "Why would I need to worry about a bunch of bats?"

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 _Warning! Fate temptation in progress! Defeat the Bat Swarm, or escape the Tunnels!_

Lambda resisted the urge to scream at Riku, and only managed to stay quiet because her boyfriend seemed to require a lesson about tempting fate. Her grimace slowly morphed into a mischievous smirk as she realized how to deliver that lesson. "Okay, if you're so confident... _HEY!_ CALLING ALL BLOOD-SUCKING BATS IN THIS CAVE! COME OUT AND FIGHT! RIKU SAYS HE'S READY FOR YOU!"

Riku covered his ears at Lambda's sudden, piercing shout, so he almost missed the massive rustling sound of thousands of leathery wings taking flight. This was not merely a "bunch" of bats. This was a colony of airborne rodents numerous enough to suck all the blood out of an entire Frost Giant tribe. Riku's eyes widened in the darkness as his dark-sense picked up the advancing wall of fur, claws, and teeth. Even so, he lashed out with his Keyblade, slaying five bats with every swing.

Unfortunately, at five bats per swing and one or two swings per second, Riku just couldn't kill enough bats to make a difference. Despite his best efforts, the bats invaded his personal space and sunk their tiny fangs into any part of his body they could reach, disregarding his fully-covering Black Coat (due to its lack of any armor bonus). After a few intensely-unpleasant seconds of this assault, Riku finally decided to turn tail and run. Lambda dove into one of the pockets of the dark warrior's coat as he dashed back the way he came like a bat out of hell...or like a boy being chased out of hell by bats.

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 _Outside the Tunnels..._

Riku burst out of the cave, heaving and panting. Thankfully, the bats turned back and left him alone the instant he left the cave mouth. "Ouch..." Riku collapsed against a nearby tree and began checking over his various wounds.

Lambda poked her head out of Riku's pocket. "Now, dear, what did we learn about tempting fate today?"

Riku growled. "I learned that I shouldn't do that, _Mom._ I get that I needed to stop acting overconfident, but did you have to be so mean about it?"

Lambda wore a sympathetic expression, but nodded resolutely. "Yes, I did. That attitude leads to Ansem's...Xehanort's...take on what the Darkness is for, remember? Also, I'm not your _mom_ , I'm your _girlfriend._ As I understand it, I'm fully within my rights as your girlfriend to call you out on your errors when you do something boneheaded, like challenging a swarm of bats to a duel."

Riku winced, feeling thoroughly chastised. "You're right, Lambda. That was pretty boneheaded of me. These bites still hurt like getting a hug from a Morningstar Heartless, though."

Lambda floated up and gave a quick kiss to one of the nastier virtual scars on Riku's stolen Ansem-face, noting that wounds always appeared to glow red in this world. "You're forgiven. If you open your menu, I'll point you to the basic healing spell. That should deal with the damage, but...that's weird. I don't think you should be feeling any pain from damage in this game. The game engine is specifically set to block any sensations of pain. Maybe it has to do with the way our real bodies are merged with our virtual avatars, so the pain barrier doesn't work properly."

Riku opened his menu with a finger swipe. "No use worrying about it; I've dealt with worse pain. Now, where's this healing spell?"

Lambda scrolled the interface and brought up the spell examples, then pointed out the Heal Self spell. "Here it is. Translated, it means something like, _'Heal myself, healing water.'_ You could change the pronoun word to set the range of who it affects, but affecting more people takes a higher skill level in the spell's element, which is water in this case. I'll open another pop-up for the pronunciation guide."

Thusly armed with online research, Riku tried to cast Heal. He fumbled over the words the first time, but the second attempt created a blue glow around him. The red marks faded away, and Riku noticed another pop-up in the corner of his view (which had actually been at the edge of his vision for the entire time he'd been in ALO) that showed his green HP bar growing as his blue MP bar shrank. The spell ended when his HP was fully restored, costing about a quarter of his MP. "Well, awkward pronunciations aside, it's nice to have healing magic of my own for once. I probably owe Mickey dozens of favors by now from all the times he's healed us."

Lambda giggled. "I thought we agreed to stop keeping score back in Castle Oblivion." She sat on Riku's shoulder, and the two rested for a moment in companionable silence. Lambda leaned up against Riku's neck, and accidentally brushed against Ansem's characteristic silver mane. "Wow, this is really soft. From the way it sticks up on top, I thought it would be stiff, but..." The rest of Lambda's sentence was muffled while she buried her face in the silver locks.

Riku blushed crimson, trying and failing to crane his neck away from Lambda. "Hey, Lambda, what are you doing? Is your head on straight?"

Lambda reluctantly released the warm, silver sheets from her tiny fists and stood up on Riku's shoulder. "I think I'm as sane as always, but I might be a little bit less restrained than usual because of the novelty of this whole experience. Everything looks so different at this size! Plus, I doubt I'll get another chance to bury my face this deep in someone's super-soft hair when I get back to my normal height."

Riku relented. "Fine, try whatever you want while you have the chance. Just don't call for attention from monsters again. That hurt my ears before the bats even attacked."

"Acknowledged. Requesting upper limitation to qualifier 'whatever you want.'"

Riku was momentarily distracted by the sudden return of Lambda's protocol-speak. "Um...I guess as long as it doesn't involve getting under my coat or inside my ears or mouth, it'll be fine. Can I order you to speak normally as much as possible?"

"Affirmative."

"Then I hereby order you to keep the protocol-speak to a minimum. And that's all the direct orders I'm going to give you right now."

"Acknowledged. ...Okay, I can talk normally again, at least for now. Please don't feel like you need to watch your wording to dodge around the control protocol, okay, Riku? It's really not a big deal for little things like these, and if you accidentally order something along the lines of 'go jump in a lake', I can ask for confirmation - at which point you can tell me not to do that. Metaphors and programs don't mix, so I'm allowed to make sure." Lambda returned to the "hammock" in Riku's hood.

Riku pondered this info. "I'll be sure to keep that in mind. Whether you trust me or not, though, that protocol still kind of spooks me. I can't afford to mess up when I'm holding some kind of leash on your free will..."

Lambda hummed. "I guess I should probably be more worried about that, but in the end, that's also a part of love, isn't it? You have to hand part of yourself to someone else, and it's scary, but it's worth the risk."

Riku nodded, accidentally bouncing Lambda's hammock. "That makes sense. I never thought of it that way, but then again, I don't think about emotional stuff much. It's too bad we can't just sit here and talk this through."

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 _Random encounter: Heartless!_

As if to prove Riku's point, a group of Heartless rose from the ground and stalked toward the dark warrior. There were five Armored Knights (minor-league enemies that could eventually grow into more powerful Heartless such as the Stalwart Blade), two Assault Riders (centaur-like warriors that spun their huge spears to keep targets at bay), and seven basic Shadows. In a flash, Riku was on his feet, Keyblade in hand. He dove into the battle with a yell, and came back out of it 75 munny richer. "Well, it's apparently time to get back to work. Interesting that I can still get munny here. Let's try this tunnel again; maybe we missed a path?"

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 _Tunnels: Take 2..._

Lambda groaned and slammed her head against the cave wall she'd been examining. "There were signs on the wall the whole time! It even says in big letters, 'WARNING: Bat Swarms! Have wind magic ready!' And here's a sign with an arrow in the other direction that says 'Neutral village ahead: Cave Town, 1/2 mile.' I guess some other players left these here. That's nice of them."

Riku felt a similar pull between his head and the wall. "I feel like an idiot for missing that. Let me guess, 'Spriggans' can't use wind magic?"

Lambda nodded in confirmation. "It would be be more difficult, and only Sylphs can use the highest-level spells. It's odd that you ended up as a Spriggan illusionist when Imps are the dark elementals, but I know you're not _just_ Darkness... Luckily, we don't have to bother the bats if we take this other, well-traveled path, which we _totally missed_ last time." After one final head-slam, Lambda returned to Riku's hood for now.

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 _Cave Town..._

Riku wound up on a large bridge over an underground lake. This cavern chamber was immense enough to house a full-sized lake. Silhouettes occasionally formed on the lake from the powerful aquatic monsters under the surface, which thankfully always stayed underwater. A walled settlement stood on a large island in the center of the lake."So, this is Cave Town? Not a very imaginative name..."

Lambda piped up, "It's a neutral settlement started after the game began, so it was named by the players. I personally prefer the way this town has a functional name that you can easily mention in conversation, instead of some huge, unpronounceable mess translated to Nordic/Faerie." Riku had to concede the point.

Riku approached the town gates. "What can I expect?"

Lambda hummed. "Other than a mix of faerie races, which would mean some actual intelligent life, there isn't much besides some NPCs running shops. We may want to pick up a party member to handle magic while you're on the front lines with the Keyblade, but we'd have to pick out which parts of the truth are okay to tell them."

A red-haired player hailed Riku from atop the wall. "Halt! State your name, affiliation, and intentions!"

"I'm Riku. I'm sort of a freelance wanderer. I'm just passing through while looking for something, but you may want to know about a new bunch of monsters spreading through the world."

"New monsters? I'm interested. Come on in." The gates opened with a loud rumbling sound, and the guard climbed down a ladder to greet the newcomer, which allowed Riku to get a good look at the guard in turn.

He was young-looking, and had short, rust-red hair with a single curl sticking up on top like Lambda's. He wore simple plate armor and had a two-handed broadsword strapped to his back. His eyes were a bright shade of green that stood out next to his hair, but other than that, he seemed very average.

Riku stepped through the gates, which shut behind him. "So, why the chilly welcome?"

The guard bowed his head briefly in apology. "Sorry about that. We've had an uptick in shady characters coming through here, and then we get blamed for letting them through when they raid travelers. So, what are these new monsters?"

Riku took a deep breath. "This is going to sound crazy. They're called the Heartless, and they're invaders from outside the game. I can't guarantee your real body will be safe if you're defeated by one."

This got an immediate, shocked reaction from the guard. His hair curl even stuck straight up, apparently reacting to his emotions. "What?! How is that possible? Will the AmuSphere fry my brain?"

Riku shuddered. "The what? No, it's arguably worse than death by brain frying. If a Heartless kills someone, they take their victim's 'heart', which contains their ability to feel emotion, and that becomes a new Heartless. So basically, if they kill you, you'll turn into one of them, a mindless monster. I'm not sure whether they can do that in virtual reality, but I wouldn't want to test it."

Lambda flew up and confirmed it. "The Heartless don't do much of anything if there aren't any hearts around to steal. Since they're aggressive here, they can indeed steal the hearts of players through their avatars."

The guard was rapidly being overwhelmed by the apparent shift in the way the world(s) worked. "That's crazy... Does that mean my real body will suddenly turn into a monster and attack people in the real world?"

Lambda put on a serious expression, which worked surprisingly well despite her overwhelming cuteness. "That's why everyone has to be careful. I don't think there have been any casualties yet, but we have to keep them from claiming even one person, or the real world won't have much defense against the resulting outbreak. I have pictures of several varieties so people know what to look out for." She raised her hands in front of her, which glowed orange and transferred several image files to the guard's virtual photo album.

The guard saw the download notification in his HUD, and opened his menu to check out the pictures. "Huh, these seem real enough, but they certainly don't look like the typical monsters in ALO. What _are_ you two? She looks like one of those private Pixies from the pre-order raffle, but they aren't supposed to be nearly this intelligent. And you don't exactly look normal either, Riku."

Lambda nodded. "You caught us. We're not a special event, nor are we AIs or normal players. We got into the game from another world, and in doing so accidentally let the Heartless follow us."

Riku facepalmed. "Way to blow our cover, Lambda..."

Lambda shrugged. "What would be the point in hiding it anymore? The players need to know enough to defend themselves, and what we say to the players isn't analyzed the way system commands are. Anyway, I'm Lambda. I had to take the Pixie role when the system found me hacking it - no malicious intent, I swear! I was just trying to learn about the new world! So, what's your name, sir?"

The guard sweatdropped, and his hair curl bent into a question mark. Who could say stuff like that so casually? "Well, if you hacked in from another world, you probably don't know the customs of this one. We don't use our real names. My avatar's name is Meteor; I came up with it when I saw the Salamander race option, and I made up a special move as my namesake. But that's not important. If the Heartless have broken into ALO, how can we stop them?"

Riku spoke up. "That's why we're searching. There should be a thing called a Keyhole in this world; If I can find it, I can use the Keyblade..." Riku equipped Way to Dawn as a demonstration, "...to seal the Keyhole, preventing the Heartless from stealing the heart of the whole world. Then I can seal the Dark Corridor that's letting them invade in the first place. I don't think sealing the Corridor first will work, and no one's ever actually tried to seal a Corridor before, but at least I can keep the world itself safe. The Heartless will ease up attacking people if they can't steal the world's heart."

Meteor didn't seem convinced. "Why do all that when we could just call the admins and let them handle it?"

Lambda shook her head. "The Heartless can't be deleted by security programs - we tried that elsewhere. And if worst came to worst, the admins might simply delete the whole game, which might not even solve the problem, on top of ruining such an awesome world. Right now, the only way the Heartless can invade your real world is by attacking a player's avatar here, but if this world were removed, it's an even chance that the Dark Corridor will either be severed...or fold into your world directly. I don't like those odds. The vigilante method really is our best option."

Meteor mulled over the info, then finally nodded. "Okay, I guess you're right. But do you even know where the Keyhole is? You need to find that to get your plan to work, right?"

Lambda shrugged helplessly. "No, but we have a general idea. The Keyhole is a portal that leads directly to the heart of a world. It'll be in an important place connected to that world's legends. My best guess is that it's at the World Tree."

"That makes sense..." Meteor suddenly perked up. "Hey, do you need a guide to get there? I want to help with this. I won't be dead weight; I'm better than any other Salamander at healing and barrier magic."

Riku considered the offer. "I'd certainly appreciate having someone else handle the magic - the way I usually do it would draw too much attention from the system. But it'll be dangerous. If a Heartless gets you, you won't just log out or have to wait a while; you'll be extinguished, replaced by a monster that will attack your friends and family in the real world. Do you still want to go?"

Meteor nodded resolutely. "I do. I really have nothing better to do, for starters. It's kind of a long story, so bear with me. Salamanders start out being good at fire magic and brute strength, so I put my effort into learning healing alongside that. Why stick to only one good strategy, you know? But it seems the rest of the players in ALO had a different opinion. The other Salamanders scoffed at me for learning 'sissy magic,' and I eventually had to leave the territory altogether to find any opportunities. That got me branded as a 'renegade', which doesn't really mean anything except that other players are bigots." 

The red-haired boy grumbled a bit about virtual discrimination before continuing. "Even here in neutral territory, my so-called renegade status means I don't get many chances to join raid parties or meet new friends, and a solo player can only get so far. I eventually had to settle down as a guard here in Cave Town, logging in only when I'm bored."

Meteor continued his story on a lighter note. "Meeting you was about the luckiest thing I've ever had happen to me, either in the real or virtual world. This could be my chance to do something that really matters. Even if it doesn't turn my avatar's virtual life around, or if no one believes me, I'll be able to think of myself as a hero who was strong enough to save Alfheim, which I could be proud of despite what other player say. And if it turns out I'm not strong enough, that's fine, too. I don't actually _have_ friends or family to endanger in the real world. My parents are big-shots at a technology consulting firm, so they're always traveling, and they let me get into VRMMOs to keep me occupied in an empty house, while they were off attending meetings in other countries to support a company I don't want to inherit."

Riku gazed at Meteor in sympathy. "I certainly understand wanting to explore other worlds out of boredom, and I understand wanting to be a hero. That was basically how I got started. Which is why I'm happy to help you out by taking you along, but I also have to warn you that being a traveling hero didn't turn out at all like I expected. It's not going to be a string of glorious battles and meeting new friends, although that's part of it. You have to be willing to sacrifice anything and everything, and to fight to avoid unnecessary sacrifices. Whether the achievement is worth the pain or not is up to you."

"Then count me in!" Meteor fiddled with his menu to send Riku a party invitation prompt.

Riku touched the green button on the hologram, and Meteor's HP and MP bars appeared below his own. "Good to have you along, Meteor! First, we need to make the news about the Heartless public knowledge."

Meteor opened his Contacts sub-menu. "I've got that covered. There are public billboards you can post on from the menu, and I have a few information brokers from around Cave Town and in Salamander territory in my contacts. They're not expecting a call from me, but they're good enough people to help spread this info around to other territories. Give me a few minutes to send out copies."

A couple minutes of fiddling later, Meteor looked up. "One of my contacts in Salamander territory wants to know what rewards the Heartless drop."

Lambda answered, "Tell him that beating the Heartless wins you another day among the living, but the items they drop have no use in ALO."

Riku blanched. "You mean my munny is totally worthless here?!"

Lambda nodded. "Yeah. ALO uses a currency called Yrd, which you can get by trading items, defeating monsters, or clearing quests. We don't have any Yrd whatsoever, which could be a problem. Of course, we never had much use for our munny, either."

Meteor closed his menu. "Well, at least the fact that the Heartless aren't profitable helped me convince the broker to route the info around for free. I'm ready to go, so let's head northeast to get to the center of Alfheim. The town there is called Alne, it's built on the roots of the World Tree, and it's the largest city in Alfheim. The Keyhole has to be there."

Riku started walking toward the northeast gate and waved his companions after him. "Well, this is a better plan than I usually have. Let's go!"

The party set out for the surface, in high spirits and looking forward to an adventure.

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 _A/N: Meteor is one of my OCs. Originally, he was a Sylph called Zephyr, but this version of the character needs fewer unnecessary changes to the way ALO works._


	3. I Can Handle You!

**Kingdom Hearts Online**

 **Chapter 3: "I Can Handle You."**

 _A/N: It's been quite a while, hasn't it? Apparently I was presumed dead. Well, here you go._

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 _On the way out of Cave Town..._

Riku let Meteor lead the way while the party left Cave Town, since their new teammate actually knew the town's layout. Lambda, sitting on Riku's shoulder, spent the time looking around at the people they passed. "There are a lot of different races here. I wonder if I can count them all? Let's see...a pair of Gnomes, three Salamanders, five Imps, another Salamander, one Spriggan - hey, Spriggan, give that sword back to the Gnome! Phew, they caught him... Two Sylphs, another two...no, three Salamanders...I give up."

Riku commented, "It's nice how they all get along, more or less. I have a bad enough reputation without being sort of the same race as that Spriggan, though."

Meteor looked back with a somewhat tense expression. "Don't worry, you look nothing like the other Spriggans. But there are quite a few people staring at us...so maybe worry about that instead?"

Meteor's attention snapped back to his front when a gruff voice called out, "Hey, renegade! I see you found a party. And hey! You joined a whole circus of freaks! Is it 'cuz his girly hair and emo coat match your stupid curl and sissy magic?" A huge, muscular Salamander blocked the path.

Meteor groaned. "Ugh, I was hoping to get out of town without running into this guy again..."

Riku crossed his arms, unimpressed by the bully's insults. "Meteor, care to fill me in?"

"That's what _she_ said!" The bully doubled over from laughing at his own non-joke.

Meteor glared up at his antagonist. "Dude, that joke was old back in the Stone Age." To Riku, he added, "His username is Burly585. He's a bully, an idiot, a failure at comedy, and undeniable living proof that online games shouldn't require everyone to have unique usernames. On the other hand, he has better armor and stronger fire magic than me, so I've never beaten him in a fight."

"Don't worry, that changes today." Riku moved in front of Meteor and put on his best death glare. "So, is there some reason you're blocking the road? We have a matter of life-or-death importance to deal with in Alne, so you have two choices: get out of our way, or be removed."

Burly585 took a step back, clearly unused to dealing with enemies who were taller than him. "Hey, don't act all superior! You want a piece of this?!"

"Here, Riku. This is the legal way to go about showing how 'superior' you are in ALO." Lambda hovered off of Riku's shoulder and opened a tutorial about PvP duels.

With a thankful smile to Lambda, Riku followed the instructions to send the duel invitation. With a smirk, he taunted Burly585. "Well, I'd rather just go about my business, but if you insist..."

The bully quivered in his armored boots; he'd never picked on a target he didn't know he could handle before. And even though Riku was clearly a noob who didn't know how to navigate his menu, the silver-haired man gave off a vibe of danger. No, he could do this! No casual noob could possibly beat the great Burly585! "W-well, fine! Let's go!" He mashed the Accept button, and a pop-up announced the imminent duel to anyone nearby, counting down from 60 seconds to give the combatants time to properly equip themselves.

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 _Riku VS Burly585. 1-on-1 deathmatch. No time limit. Starting in 60 seconds..._

Burly585 took five paces back and equipped a two-handed broadsword, which was proportionally larger and of slightly higher quality than Meteor's weapon. He also equipped a full helmet to protect his face, which slightly muffled his taunt. "Let's see if you can break through my armor, noob! I bet you can't!"

Riku, meanwhile, pulled on his hood and equipped Way to Dawn, settling into his familiar combat stance. He was pleased that deathmatches were allowed, due to the way death worked in ALO. Burly585 would simple dissolve into a red flame for a minute or two, then respawn with some progress lost toward raising his skills. "Challenge accepted."

The bully laughed at the design of Riku's weapon. Granted, it might seem impractical to those who had never seen a Keyblade in action. "What kind of stupid weapon is that?"

Riku let his opponent see the knowing smirk under his hood. "This is the kind of weapon that is _everything_ except stupid. Rather than explain, I'll just show you what I mean."

3...2...1...BEGIN!

Riku charged forward and prepared to jump to the side, knowing that a heavily-armored fighter like Burly585 wouldn't waste energy making the first attack. Or would he? Riku smirked under his hood as he saw the hulking Salamander stomping right at him, sword raised high overhead, yelling, "HIYAAAH!"

Burly585 probably thought he was intimidating, but he might as well have painted a big red stripe across his torso to tell his opponent where his guard was open. In an extra burst of speed, Riku painted that stripe for him. "Zantetsuken!"

"What the h-URK!" Burly585 didn't even have a chance to comment on the attack before his torso slid off of his cleanly-disconnected legs. Both halves of the bully caught on brilliant red fire and burned away, leaving behind a small red fireball that hovered for a few seconds before puffing out entirely.

The duel pop-up announced the winner: Riku!

The fight, though laughably short, had attracted a few onlookers, many of whom applauded Riku's display of speed and strength. Riku rubbed the back of his head through his hood, feeling out of place. This felt like the old days of Riku being the best fighter on the Destiny Islands, but he couldn't shake the feeling that he didn't deserve this applause. He hadn't finished atoning for the messes he'd made yet. Besides, the whole point of the duel was to clear the path, and now there was a crowd taking up the whole road.

Lambda noticed the problem. Flying overhead, she called out, "Riku's pretty cool, isn't he? We really do have to get moving, though, so clear the road, please!" The people did move aside, but mostly to get a closer look at Lambda, who suddenly realized that most Pixies were relatively simple AI programs. "And now I'm the big attraction...great..." One of the awed onlookers suddenly grabbed Lambda's wing, which she had to yank out of his grip. "Hey, hands off! Let us through, please!"

Meteor stepped forward. "Let me handle this." He raised a hand in front of him and spoke several words of an incantation, surrounding Riku, Lambda, and himself in shining blue barriers that could push away solid objects. "Just plow through them! Follow me!" He sprinted through the crowd, tossing aside an Imp and Sylph who were too slow to get out of the way. Riku followed suit, while Lambda grabbed onto his hood, merging her barrier with his.

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**

 _Cave Town: North Gate..._

At the edge of town, the party slowed down to catch their breath. Their barriers faded as Meteor's spell timed out.

Lambda huffed in irritation as she pulled herself all the way into Riku's hood. "That guy's hands were grimy! I didn't know immaterial wings like these could even feel contact, much less transmit a sensation as complex as uncleanliness. Well, I guess that's what I get for trying to be polite to a mob. Thanks for the save, Meteor!"

Meteor gave her a thumbs-up. "It was no trouble! I'm just glad my barrier spell is useful for something. I haven't exactly had much success using it in combat, even if that's mostly because I never had a party to support."

Riku grimaced. "If that Burger858 guy was anything like the rest of his race, then no wonder you had to leave the Salamander territory. I personally don't see what's so great about specializing in attacking magic. Sure, I mostly use offensive magic myself, but one of these days I'm going to take a nasty hit from something, and I won't be able to heal myself."

Lambda added, "He also seemed to be teasing you about your hair, Meteor. I noticed that curl changes shape sometimes; is that why?"

Meteor chuckled grimly. "Yep. It's a super-rare feature I got in the avatar randomization process, and it responds to my emotions. You'd think having a rare avatar would be great, but it's almost impossible to lie for whatever reason when my hair goes rigid from stress. Not only that, but it's a _female-only_ feature. I only got it due to a randomly-occurring glitch that was patched a month after I joined."

Riku winced. "Wow, that is some seriously bad luck."

"Tell me about it. Everyone who doesn't tease me for specializing in defense seems to think I'm a magical girl wannabe. I've tried cutting the dumb thing off, but it reappears whenever I return from logging out."

Lambda realized that she had a similar hair curl, and also matched many traits of a character in the magical girl fantasy genre, so she felt the need to speak up. "I, for one, protest the notion that magical girls are somehow inferior to musclebound bullies like Burly585."

Riku remarked as an aside, "Oh, yeah, that was his name. Now I can forget about him all over again."

Meteor grumbled, "It's not so much the 'magical' part I have the problem with. It gets really old, walking into shops and hearing the clerk ask me, 'Can I help you, miss?' The glitch even makes NPCs do that. That's part of why I carry a big sword."

Riku cut in, asking, "What's the rest of the reason? You said earlier that you named a unique move after yourself. What sort of move is it?"

Meteor cheered up immediately, walking faster as the party approached a stream of daylight at the end of the tunnel. "I'll show you the next time we run into some monsters. Don't worry, it won't take long. The random encounter rate on the road right outside the caves is..."

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**

 _Random encounter: goblins and Heartless!_

"...Really high." Meteor sighed and drew his sword, pointing it at one of the five Shadows crawling between the legs of seven goblins, which had appeared in a blue flash that doubled as ALO's teleportation effect. "Those are Heartless, right? Time to see if in-game weapons can beat them."

Setting his shoulders in a firm line, Meteor activated his red Salamander wings. With a mighty leap, he soared high above the group of enemies and was silhouetted by the sun. While he was in the air, he quickly chanted a few Words of Power, covering his broadsword in a cloak of fire as he raised it overhead.

"Meteor Crush!" Meteor shouted his namesake attack and dove straight down into the fray, flaming sword-first. A massive explosion went off as he crashed to the ground, knocking all the enemies into the air. The Shadows immediately burst into puffs of Darkness that scattered on the hot wind, but the goblins kept sailing through the air, making them easy prey for Meteor as he spun in a circle, throwing the rest of the flames off his sword with a spinning slash. The extra fire washed outward and incinerated all the goblins. Meteor stood back up in the middle of the now-burning field and slung his sword onto his back again, unfazed by the flames slowly dying down around him.

For a moment, there was only silence. Then, Riku and Lambda erupted into applause.

Riku gave Meteor a big thumbs-up. "That was the most badass attack I've seen in months! And that's a really big compliment, since I'm comparing you to Organization XIII."

Lambda dug through functions and found a battle-victory fanfare jingle to play for Meteor. "What style! Even Riku's attacks aren't usually that cool, and his are usually limited to a single target, so yours is more useful, too!"

Meteor basked in the compliments he really wanted to hear, but finally held up a hand. "I know my Meteor Crush is a cool move; I'm the one who invented it, after all. But there's a huge drawback. See my sword?" He turned around to show his new friends that his broadsword was glowing red-hot. "I only have an ordinary metal sword. Covering it in such hot flames weakens the metal. I went through a lot of broadswords before I figured out that I have to not use my sword at all for a little more than five minutes after that attack, or it'll break."

Riku's applause lost some steam; five minutes of being unable to attack was quite a steep price to use such an awesome move. "Ouch. That must have been embarrassing the first time it happened."

Lambda found a sound clip titled "sadairhorns" and played it. She winced at how fitting the fanfare turned out to be, and hid in Riku's pocket in embarrassment.

Meteor grimaced. "The cooldown time is why I had so much trouble with that bully; if anyone survives my Meteor Crush, I get left totally defenseless. That's why I really need to be in a party. So, again, thanks for bringing me along! I hope my Meteor Crush and support magic makes up for my below-average swordplay and weird hair."

Riku arched an eyebrow. "Let's tally the weirdness between us. You, Meteor, have a curl of hair that bends when you emote. Meanwhile, I, Riku, am the living prison of a sentient Heartless supervillain. My idea of a vacation is to set out and explore other worlds. I'm trying to prove myself worthy of my sword-sized key's approval. And to top it all off, this is my girlfriend." Riku plucked Lambda out of his pocket by her cape's collar, eliciting an adorable little _eep_ from the Murakumo Unit-turned-Pixie. "I think I can handle you. Right, Lambda?"

Lambda was still flustered over being suddenly yanked into the air, but she gave Meteor a double thumbs-up. "Yeah, we both pretty much think 'weird' is cool! Now could you please let go of my collar, dear?"

"Sure thing, dear." Riku dropped Lambda into his other hand, and she fluttered back into the air. Both of them were still flushed from the sheer cuteness of that squeak.

Meteor started laughing at nothing in particular. At first he just chuckled softly, but as he got louder, Riku and Lambda joined in until they were all laughing together. They were the friends Meteor had always wanted. "Seriously, though, thank you both so much. I won't put myself down anymore."

Lambda clutched her sides as she tried to get her giggles under control. "No worries. That was the best laugh I've ever had, and it's great to be able to laugh like this with the least bigoted Salamander in ALO." Riku, who was still letting out chuckles every few seconds, nodded in agreement.

Meteor wiped a few tears out of his eyes, then turned toward the World Tree's silhouette on the horizon. "You're both welcome. We're going to need to fly to get to Alne before sundown, when I'll have to log out for a while. I hope you can keep up!" With a smirk, Meteor extended his wings and took off, racing toward Alne as fast as his wings could carry him.

Riku returned an equal smirk as he overtook Meteor's speed with the Power of Darkness. "Don't worry about me." Both of them poured on the speed, and Lambda laughed brightly as she held onto Riku's hood.

To the hordes of Heartless already roaming on the ground, the travelers looked like shining streaks of red, black, and white racing through the sky, taunting the creatures below with the delicious Light of their hearts. Claws of Darkness stretched skyward, yearning to tear the three friends' camaraderie apart, but there was a much tastier Light further ahead. The Heartless lacked the advanced minds necessary to truly plan ahead, but their feral instincts knew what to do. They would stalk, track, and devour, always and forever...


	4. This Is It!

**Kingdom Hearts Online**

 **Chapter 4: "This Is It!"**

 _A/N: Okay, you've all waited long enough. Especially you, FierceDeityMask!_

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 _We fly the road to Alne!_

Riku and Meteor eventually calmed down and stopped racing each other, but they had to keep up the pace to get to Alne before sundown. Riku marveled at how much bigger and more open this world was compared to the ones he knew.

Meteor explained, "The day/night cycle of Alfheim is based on the time in real life, but it's in its own time zone that would fit somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, not anywhere people would live. Still, it's possible to tell what time it is in real life by watching the sun in Alfheim."

Riku mused, "I have no clue what you mean about time zones, but I guess you'll know when you need to log out. Is there anything special you'll need to do at that time?"

Meteor replied, "Not if we reach Alne in time, but if I have to log out while we're outside the towns, you'd have to defend my sleeping avatar for a few hours until I can get back. The appointment with my tutor will take two hours, and then I'll need some time to sleep. So I guess it'll take ten hours, which you'd have to spend defending my body if we can't make it."

Lambda piped up, "Speaking of time limits, we'd better land. Meteor's wings are about to give out, which means Riku will need to land to avoid alerting the system."

As they descended to the ground, Riku grumbled, "Darn. Getting there in one day just became a lot less achievable."

"We can't help it, dear. Unless you think you can teleport all three of us without alerting the system."

Riku smirked. "Well, why can't I? A big selling point of the Darkness is that it makes things hard to see. I just need to figure out some kind of jamming or cloaking spell, and we have a lot of free time to work on that."

"Try a Spriggan spell," Meteor suggested. "They excel at illusion magic, so you should be able to disguise your spell as a normal cloaking spell, then use the actual spell to hide us from the system too."

Riku gave the Salamander a high-five. "Great idea, Meteor! Let's see..." Lambda opened the Words of Power glossary, and the group spent about ten minutes picking through it for the right words for a low-level cloaking spell.

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Right as Riku was about to cast the mixed spell, the group became aware of vibrations in the ground. Looking around, they saw an enormous horde of Heartless on the horizon, mostly consisting of Shadows, though a few aerial Emblem Heartless such as Aeroplanes and Air Pirates had joined the horde as well.

Meteor trembled. "That's a _lot_ of Heartless!"

"Something's wrong," Lambda whispered. "Most of them are in the air. Even with this many Shadows, they shouldn't be making the ground shake. Something else is out there - something _big_."

"Now would be a really good time to teleport," Meteor prompted Riku.

"Okay, hold on to my shoulders!" Riku shouted the words of his mock concealment spell, and a smokescreen-like cloud of Darkness obscured the party from all observation, be it physical sight, electronic surveillance, or even Lambda's metaphysical Observation. Then Riku focused on the town they could glimpse on the horizon (if it weren't for the cloud), and _pulled_ on the Darkness within and around him to drag himself there, taking Lambda and Meteor along for the ride.

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 _Alne: the Base of the World Tree..._

A burst of Darkness heralded Riku's party's arrival at the very center of Alfheim, startling a few passerby of various faerie races.

Ignoring them, Riku turned to Meteor and said, "If you need to log out, now's the time. Hurry back; the Heartless will start a massive attack soon."

"Right. Stay safe, Riku." Meteor opened his menu, made a few clicks, and vanished into a blue glow.

Lambda flew off Riku's shoulder. "So, now what? Do we wait for him to come back?"

Riku shook his head. "No, we should start scouting for the Keyhole. I bet it's somewhere around this huge tree." He pointed out _the_ tree; the World Tree Yggdrasil was the largest landmark in Alfheim - it was visible from anywhere in the game and was absolutely impossible to miss. "If the Keyhole isn't related to this thing, I'll eat my hood."

"That big dome by the nearest root looks promising." Lambda set a waypoint in Riku's HUD, pointing out a pristine white dome with massive double doors, flanked by giant statues of armored faeries.

"Let's check it out. The faster we can seal the Keyhole, the better."

The doors had no Keyhole, unfortunately. The statues spoke in simultaneous, resonating voices and offered a quest (worded in a grandiose, archaic dialect) when Riku approached, but he declined the prompt that popped up. "Well, that's a bust. Lambda, try scanning the roots."

Lambda gave her report in the monotone voice of the control protocol. "Acknowledged. Scanning...No anomalies detected within 10 meters...20 meters...100 meters...500 meters...1 match found: 1640 meters above current location."

Riku winced, then winced harder when he heard the full report. "Oops, sorry about the order, dear! So it's way up in the World Tree, then? That's no good. How do we get up there?"

"We could beat that quest, but I wouldn't recommend it. On the other hand, if that mob of Heartless approaching Alne doesn't catch the Game Master's attention, I'll eat the tags off my cape. We could make our case to the GM directly and ask for special permission to break the rules, but it would be too risky to use the call function; the system would identify and delete us before the Game Master could even pick up the call."

Lambda shuddered at the thought; she had gauged the capabilities of the "Cardinal System", and assigned it threat level SS. It was essentially a god to this virtual world, capable of altering or deleting whatever it needed to without prompting from a user. The only reason Lambda's god-slaying directives weren't acting up was that the Cardinal System didn't have a physical presence in this world for her to attack.

"Well, I guess we should just stock up on supplies to respond to the invasion." Riku dug into his pocket for munny. 

Lambda grabbed his wrist to stop him. "Our munny is worthless, remember?"

"Oh, right. What can we..." Riku was cut off by a massive yawn.

Lambda giggled at Riku, but was cut off by a yawn of her own. "I say we get some rest. Light knows we don't get anywhere near enough sleep in our travels. It's perfectly fine to nap on the benches beside the roads."

"Agreed." Riku settled down on the closest bench he could reach, pulled up his hood, and closed his eyes. Lambda settled into his lap before following him into slumber.

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 _Ten hours later..._

"Riku, are you okay?" A voice called.

Riku snapped awake, jostling Lambda to alertness as well. "We're fine. Who's asking?"

The voice was Meteor's, and he looked worried. "It's me, Meteor. Did you find the Keyhole? The Heartless are almost here."

Lambda replied, "No, it's somewhere inside the World Tree. Our current plan is that the Heartless will attract the Game Master's attention, and he'll show up in person to deal with them, so we can ask him to let us see the Keyhole. But we can't call him directly without getting caught."

Luckily, Meteor had a solution. "You can't, but I can. When the Heartless attack, I'll send him a message, but no one will believe me unless something actually happens."

Lambda bowed gratefully in midair. "Thanks! Please don't mention us directly, but tell him about the Heartless and ask for his help. We could also use your help rounding up capable defenders to hold off the Heartless. If those monsters reach the World Tree, it's all over, but we can't send weaker players at them and risk losing anyone."

"Leave it to me. I'll queue up my connections and get ready to call the local guilds..."

 _ ***BOOM!***_ A thunderous sound rocked the city from the south.

Riku took off immediately. "No need to wait! The Heartless are here!"

 **BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB**

 _Alne calls for aid!_

Meteor rapidly set up multiple connections and called every leader of every race he could reach all at once. "This is an emergency call to all players! The Heartless have invaded Alne! You may have heard of the Heartless in recent news reports. They are very real! This is not a joke, a drill, or a prank! We need every skilled player we can get to drive them off, but don't send anyone unless they can handle themselves without taking even a scratch! Wounds from the Heartless cause permadeath, and the effect will carry over to the real world - do _not_ let them touch you, or you'll turn into one of them!"

At first, Meteor's pleas were rebuffed. The Imp leader was suspicious. "Who's calling?"

The leader of the Salamander Guild in Alne just laughed. "Very funny, renegade!"

However, the Cait Sith race, hailing from the west of Alfheim, backed up Meteor's claim. Their leader, a young girl with the username Alicia Rue, rebuked the others, "He's telling the truth, guys! One of my lieutenants just sent me the same news. There are monsters in the streets, and they don't look normal at all. You other races can fight or flee, but do it quick! There's a lot of them! Listen...Meteor? The Cait Sith have your back. Any dragon riders stationed in Alne, move out! Everyone else, prepare to travel! We have a town to save!"

The other races quickly came around to this point of view, putting aside personal disagreements to combat this threat to them all and soon coalitions were being put together in every territory to hold off the Heartless. Meteor only hoped they could muster their forces quickly enough.

For now, Meteor had one more call to make. He scrolled down his menu to a seldom used button. Hitting it put him on a direct line to the Game Master.

"Who disturbs the Fairy King Oberon?" Came a high-pitched voice from the pop-up. The video feed was too bright to discern features. Clearly, "King Oberon" was going to stay in character.

Meteor decided to give role-playing a shot if it would improve his chances of getting aid. "My deepest apologies, Your Majesty, but there is a major threat to all of Alfheim. Monsters from outside the boundaries of this world, apparently known as the Heartless, are attacking the gates of Alne as I speak. If they reach the World Tree, the entire world could be destroyed, and the reality beyond will not be spared. Your Majesty, I pray you know that I would not call upon your aid directly if this were not an hour of direst need for the whole world."

"...Very well. I will descend from my throne and see these 'Heartless' for myself. If they are the threat you claim them to be, I will vanquish them in the name of all faeries - but know that if you speak untruly, your wings are forfeit forever."

"You have my eternal gratitude, Your Majesty." Meteor bowed to the screen and cut the connection. "That was a weird exchange, but I think it worked!" Meteor took off into the air to search for Riku and Lambda, eager to pass on the good news and join the fight.

 **BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB**

 _Defeat the Heartless while protecting the players!_

Riku was at the front lines of the struggle. The Heartless had broken through the south gate, which shocked dozens of players because the gates were an "Immortal Object", a facet of the environment that should be impossible to destroy by any method available in the game.

The Heartless certainly weren't native aspects of the game. This act confirmed all the rumors, and the realization that the Heartless were a _real_ threat galvanized the players into action. Those who were confident in their skills and equipment and were willing to risk their lives formed ranks to hold the Heartless back, including aerial combatants.

Even the most stalwart defenders couldn't stop a few stray Shadows from sinking into the floor and passing underneath the barricade, though. When he had almost reached the battle, Meteor noticed a Shadow trying to claw its way into a building with a particularly low door, and smashed the monster with his sword. He called out to the defenders, "We need scouts to track the ones that slip away! Don't let them into the houses!"

Without looking back, a particularly strong-looking Sylph shouted, "Can you handle that? We have our hands full with the big ones!"

Meteor hesitated, then decided on the best course of action. "I can't...but I can make the main job easier!" He recited the incantation that created a powerful wall of blue light, which totally blocked the road. The Shadows attacking head-on couldn't even slip under the barrier, but the faeries found that their projectile spells were unimpeded as they passed through the one-way wall. "That should lighten your load!"

An Imp called out, "Thanks, man! We can handle the fliers just fine! This fight's in the bag!"

 _ ***BOOM!***_

"They've broken through the west gate! Please, someone help!"

A black blur passed overhead. Meteor expected a Heartless, but it was Riku!

While darting toward the new threat, Riku mumbled, "You _had_ to jinx it, didn't you?"

Meteor took flight as well. His barrier would only last five minutes; he had to get to the west gate to put one up there before this one went down!

"We need to act as a last line of defense around the World Tree," Lambda urged. "Cordoning off the streets is a great idea, but the alleys are already thick with Heartless, and they're heading right for the center."

"I can't put up enough barriers to surround the World Tree!" Meteor panicked.

"Barriers...I have an idea. I hope we can talk to the GM soon so I can put it into action."

A blast of golden light flared up behind them, seeming to paint the buildings of Alne gold for a moment. Meteor pointed back toward a shining pillar of energy lancing into the sky from the front of the World Tree's entrance dome. "That's him! Go on! I'll keep the front-line blockades up!"

Riku flew to the center of town as fast as his Darkness could carry him, making sure to land before he reached the clearing. He reached the pillar of light just as a long-haired blond man with butterfly-like green wings descended along it.

"Game Master, I have a favor to ask!"

"You shall address me as the Fairy King Oberon. Do so, and I may hear your request! Make it swift; that boy was truthful in his claims about the Heartless, and I have a kingdom that must be protected!"

"I am the one who accidentally led the Heartless here. My name's Riku. I've been pretending to be a player to avoid being deleted while I try to fix this, but I've had to hold back a lot of the abilities I brought here from off-world. I need your permission to use powers the game won't recognize. If I can use my full power, I can fix everything. I need you to trust me."

King Oberon scoffed at Riku. "You freely admit to being an alien hacker, and you want me to _trust_ you with this world's stability? Not a chance! I'll handle these Heartless myself. You're lucky I have no time to render judgment on you personally; you should consider your temporary pardon a sign of my goodwill. Now watch your god at work!"

"You're not _my_ god," Lambda muttered from Riku's pocket, too softly to be heard.

Oberon floated grandly into the sky, then called down massive beams of light that ripped apart the majority of the Heartless.

"He's not using the Words of Power," Lambda noted. "He's using administrative value-editing functions, like 'Reduce HP of all objects in the targeted area by 50,000.'"

"Whatever he did, it worked," Riku grudgingly admitted. "But something's still bugging me..."

The memory came back to him in a flash.

 _"Even with this many Shadows, they shouldn't be making the ground shake."_

"The big one has to be getting close. Where is it?"

"We have to change Oberon's mind before it gets here."

" ***Screech!*** " Too late; the "big one's" battle cry carried from the northern gate. Riku rose into the air to see what it was. When he got a good look, his jaw almost dropped all the way back to the ground.

"It's _HUGE!_ "

Lambda scanned the beast. "Target identified as _Elder Bladewyrm._ Threat level graded as SS. Potential weak points: eyes and internal organs. Warning! All weapon systems are unavailable at this time. Suggested battle strategy: tactical retreat."

"Whoa, it's _that_ bad?" Lambda's scanning protocols had _never_ told them to retreat, not even that one time they were up against Nu-13. Riku found it difficult to argue, though.

The Elder Bladewyrm certainly cut an imposing figure. It was a quadruped dragon with three thick, black talons on each foot. The scales on its back were white and bladed, looking like a field of swords sticking out of the beast pointy-end out - a warning to any who would approach, if one was needed. Red, smooth plates coated its underbelly, forming an impenetrable defense.

Its neck and head were of the same color scheme, with the red scales covering its lower jaw. Its head was proudly raised and crowned with especially long spikes. The signature yellow eyes of a Heartless glowed in the shadow of its bladed brow. From its blade-covered back, two white wings unfurled, with the red-and-black Heartless symbol standing out starkly in the center of the bat-like membrane of each wing. The wings seemed too short to allow the Elder Bladewyrm to fly, but Riku didn't want to bet Alfheim's safety on a guess.

More than any of its features, though, the dragon stood out for its massive size. It looked like if it were to stretch its neck, it could eat leaves from the branches of the World Tree. But the predatory gleam in its eyes would tell anyone who saw it that this colossus was no herbivore. How many people's hearts could vanish into its massive maw at once? Riku swore not to let it find out. But he couldn't hope to beat this thing while there were limits imposed on him by the system.

Lambda continued her report. "Although it's definitely even more dragon-like than the Wyvern-type Heartless we've seen before, it doesn't seem to have a breath weapon, so that's good. But I bet it has some other way to cause widespread destruction...because we can't possibly be that lucky in the middle of all this."

"It could cause widespread destruction just by taking a step! Even Oberon might not be able to beat it." But he would certainly try.

The Fairy King attacked. He tried the same damage function that wiped out most of the Heartless, only to receive an error. As the pillar of light faded, a red pop-up stating "System Command Failed" appeared in front of the dragon's face, and everyone in Alne saw it. Panic erupted in the streets.

Riku flew toward the fight. "Well, King Oberon, will you let me handle it now?"

"Rrgh... Fine! Do what you want, but do not let that monster destroy this world!" Oberon raised a special menu in front of himself and typed several commands.

 **BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB**

 _Get ready to save the game!_

A message appeared in front of Riku: "Account created. ID: Riku. Administrative privileges active." Oberon fled into a pillar of light and logged out.

Riku yelled at the sky, "If you can hear me, thanks for changing your mind! Now, let's get this done. First things first. System command: create account. ID: Lambda-11! Grant user ID: Lambda-11 administrative privileges!"

Lambda glowed and returned to her normal form, with Murakumo and the IDEA Engine fully online.

Riku summoned Way to Dawn and smirked. "It is _so_ good to be back! Just one more thing to do." He clenched his left fist over his chest, drawing from the pit of Darkness in his heart. Then he reached out to the Darkness that made up the Heartless.

Riku channeled the Darkness of the attacking Heartless force. Heartless were harder to wrangle when they weren't pretending to be on his side, but Riku wasn't the weakling he was a few months ago. With a roar of effort, Riku subjugated the Darkness and wove it into the shape he wanted. It formed a visually pleasing arrangement of tessellating hexagons - a Dark Wall.

The villains in Maleficent's club loved this trick, and almost always used it to prevent victims from escaping. This Dark Wall, however, would block anyone from approaching the World Tree. The barrier locked into place like a cylinder wrapped around the trunk, then extended into a cone to defend the branches.

"There. Now none of the Heartless can get to the Keyhole unless I die or the Heartless flee. No one can cut this battle short."

Riku took a moment to admire Lambda's Battle Mode for the first time what felt like days. Her pixie form was adorable, sure, but both of the travelers definitely preferred her true form's ability to fight. "This is it! Are you ready, Lambda?"

Lambda aligned her Petals at her sides, pointing at the dragon's right eye. "Affirmative, Riku! Let's beat that thing, just like we always do!"

 **BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB**

 _Defeat the Elder Bladewyrm!_

The pair charged at the Elder Bladewyrm's head side-by-side, launching swords and dark fireballs to get its attention, but that was all they accomplished. It bent its massive neck to face the nuisances pelting it with what might as well be dust motes and spread its wings. With a massive flap, it generated gale-force winds to push the fighters out of the air, and then revealed its favorite trick.

Every one of its white scales stood straight out, then launched off its body in all directions. Hundreds of blade-scales got caught in the wind of its wing-beat, flying straight at the disoriented Riku and Lambda. Luckily, most of the scales hit nothing and vanished when they impacted the Dark Wall, but the pair still received some shallow cuts.

"Not fair! Completely unfair! That's _my_ trick!" Lambda angrily righted herself in midair, then used her administrative access to run a deeper scan on what it designated a Level [blank] boss. "Weaknesses identified! the membranes of its wings are a cripple point; we can stop it from blowing wind at us. There's a less-armored spot under its chin! Strike there!"

"Great work! I'll carve into the chin! You rip up its wings!" Riku flickered out of sight without waiting for a reply, using a flash-step to get right next to the weak point.

Lambda dashed into the effective range of Sword Summoner EX, even as the control protocol took over. "Acknowledged. Target locked. Legacy Edge. Legacy Edge." Two wormholes appeared; each one launched a continuous stream of daggers that ripped tiny holes in the dragon's wings.

However, compared to the massive size of the wings, all 80 of the miniscule wounds Lambda created were insignificant. "Argh! I'll need to get creative - whoa!" Lambda weaved around another storm of daggers launched from the Bladewyrm's back, then dashed straight at the dragon's left wing.

She dug her fingers into the holes she'd made around the edge of the wing and held on tight, clinging to the wing membrane in a sort of sideways crouch. "I hope this works! Sickle Storm!" A spinning buzz-saw ripped open the wing all the way up its seventy-foot length. Lambda repeated the attack, cutting out massive chunks of white wing membrane that dissolved into clouds of smoky Darkness before they could crush the houses below her.

"First cripple point destroyed. Retargeting second cripple point." As Lambda darted over the dragon's back to repeat the process on the other wing, she suddenly noticed that the entire Heartless was giving off a glowing red aura, probably in response to the destruction of the first wing. "What now?"

The dragon's aura flared up twice as large for a moment, heralding the appearance of hundreds of scale-blades that floated in the air around it independently from gravity. Lambda's dash brought her too close to a small cloud of them, and the scales turned in midair to face her.

Lambda guessed what would happen next and set up her Petals in Guard Mode, just in time to block the scales when they launched themselves right at her. Each scale disappeared as it impacted her guard, leaving the air clear for Lambda to reach the Bladewyrm's right wing, but she had to deal with two more groups before she could cling to the membrane safely like before.

After weathering the dragon's attempts to repel her, Lambda mutilated its right wing as quickly as she could. She used Act Parcer Zwei to dodge another spray of blades from the dragon's back, then shot through the air to report her success to Riku.

 **BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB**

 _Meanwhile, on the front lines with Meteor..._

When a dragon the size of the city stomped onto the scene, many of the defending faeries lost their resolve and immediately logged out. Far from being angry at the deserters, Meteor took their advice and spread it among the entire force as thoroughly as he could. He sent a message to the various impromptu squad leaders: "With that wall keeping the Heartless out of the World Tree, the best thing to do is to log out for now. The outcome of this battle hinges on the battle between my friends and that dragon; there won't be progress either way until they're done. We can't afford to get hit by those scales, so we can't have the whole army here.; I'll stay logged in and hide; could you pass me some contact info so I can send you an alert when the situation changes?"

Ten blocks of contact info came back to him, and the entire defending army logged out, along with all remaining civilians. Thousands of potential victims abruptly vanished from Alfheim, significantly calming the Heartless' agitation. The horde of invaders faltered, held still for a moment, and finally began to wander away from the city.

Meteor saw them go, but couldn't let them escape into the wild. Creating a barrier to defend himself from flying scale-blades, the Salamander flew over the hordes to lure them to a nearby fort. All guards were trained in the use of the ballistae and other defensive measures that lined the walls of typical prefabricated forts in Alfheim, and Meteor was about to put those weapons to good use.

A vaguely triangular crowd of Heartless trailed underneath Meteor for the entire flight, but luckily the fort he had in mind was specifically located within one ten-minute flight from Alne. He swooped down to the ramparts of a building proudly marked "This fort is the property of General Wish-Giver". Whoever this General Wish-Giver person was, Meteor hoped they wouldn't mind if he borrowed their ballistae for a good cause.

The Heartless single-mindedly shambled toward the only heart in the world they could reach, which made them easy pickings when a massive fireball launched from the fort walls and slammed into the center of the tightly-packed crowd of monsters. The field caught fire, and the resulting blaze spread further back, eliminating many of the stragglers. Some of the Heartless were immune to fire, such as Red Nocturnes and Fat Bandits, so the remainder of the horde was mostly orange and red.

Meteor didn't know what they were called, but he correctly assumed that these Heartless were immune to fire and _only_ fire. Luckily, there was another neat anti-siege weapon in Alfheim called the "snowman cannon."

As he aimed the nondescript, cylindrical weapon, he chuckled to himself, "What will those wacky Leprechauns think of next?" The blacksmith faeries had invented many unusual gadgets like this one, most of which had equally-ridiculous names. Meteor had to give points to the engineers for the weapon's effectiveness, though; one shot turned all of the remaining Heartless into Darkness-sicles. One more shot shattered them into tiny bits, and the bits puffed into black smoke and heart-shaped lumps of Light that rose into the sky. The remains of the Heartless passed the maximum altitude limit, to one day reform as monsters on some other world.

"And stay out! I hope Riku's fight will be this easy..."

 **BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB**

 _Back with Riku..._

"I can't believe I thought this would be easy..." The underside of the Elder Bladewyrm's chin did indeed have less armored scales than the rest of its body, but that didn't mean it was unarmored. Riku's Keyblade cut right into the dragon's relatively soft spot, but he couldn't cut deep enough to hit anything important.

Lambda rushed up to him. "Both wings are destroyed. Also, everyone else in all of Alfheim has logged out, so we don't need to worry about this thing's scales hitting civilians anymore."

"Who's defending the city, then?" Riku wondered.

"We are," was Lambda's simple reply. "It's pretty genius, actually; the Heartless don't have any prey now, and they won't challenge _this_ monstrosity's dominance by taking the heart of the world before it does. Which it won't, because we're going to kill it. How's that going, by the way?"

Riku made an _eeh_ noise of indecision. "I've got good news and bad news. The good news: not many of those scales end up here, probably so it doesn't stab itself, and it can't seem to tuck its chin down or get me out of its blind spot in any way. It would probably be a lot harder to reach if we had to climb the neck without flying, but..."

Lambda deadpanned, "What's the bad news?"

"It still has too much armor for me to do any real damage. Can you use that Calamity Sword move on it?" 

Lambda looked down from embarrassment. "No, that move can only drop straight down. You've made up a bunch of cool Dark moves on the fly, Riku; think you can ad-lib an armor piercing anti-air move?"

"I tried, but I don't think the Darkness will cut it for this one."

Lambda tried to view the problem from another angle. "Then...what about the Light?"

Riku wondered. "I haven't been practicing with the Light as much as I should, but I think I can make this work. Can you do that thing you used against Ansem - er, Xehanort's Heartless - where you transferred Darkness out of me to power yourself up? I need a clear heart to be certain I can do this."

"Not a problem. Come here..." Lambda pulled Riku into a full embrace and kissed him deeply on the lips, which actually wasn't necessary for the transfer; she just felt like kissing him. But the transfer worked well enough either way. Lambda vented the excess Darkness to place Gravity Seeds along the Bladewyrm's carapace, preventing its scales from shooting off.

Meanwhile, Riku put his new trick into practice. While his inner Darkness was less in the way than usual, he focused on his Light, which was easy to find by thinking of the kiss he'd just shared. He pushed the Light into his weapon, surrounding it with a glowing aura that could cut through anything. Riku kept pushing more Light into the aura and enlarging it, until the white-purple energy blade was more than three times larger in all directions than the weapon it surrounded. "I'll call this one Bladecharge. This is it!"

Riku drove Way to Dawn up into the Heartless' head, expanding its aura further until it could be seen shining from behind the blade-spikes that made up the Elder Bladewyrm's crown. Then Riku shoved the Keyblade downward, slicing as far down the dragon's neck as he could reach. Clouds of vaporous Darkness spurted from the wound, then began to rise from all over the Heartless' body. The entire dragon began to vibrate, which was Riku and Lambda's cue to take cover far away from it. That was a smart decision, because every scale on the dragon blasted off its body in one last attempt to take the victorious heroes down with it. Metal pinged off the ground all over the city, but Riku and Lambda weren't in the city to be hit, and Meteor had logged out to pass on the good news.

A cluster of no less than thirty huge hearts floated into the sky where the Elder Bladewyrm once stood and vanished into thin air, freed from the Darkness that held them, but no one was left in Alfheim to watch the spectacle.

 **BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB**

 _Area: MAP DATA RESTRICTED..._

Riku had teleported to an admin-only area, high in the branches of the World Tree. The open air blew around him in surprisingly gentle currents as he took in the view from a branch as wide as one of the city streets in Alne below him.

There was a golden cage hanging from the lowest branch, which seemed to be for an enormous canary, but the lavish bed and other expensive furnishings inside the cage suggested a more sinister choice of captive. No one was held inside right now, though; who was Oberon planning to imprison in this gilded cage?

Riku decided he'd had enough of guessing about this world, though. His goal was there, too; a tiny, shining Keyhole was set in the cage's door. Riku pointed Way to Dawn at the Keyhole, and the weapon emitted a beam of Light to seal this world away from the grasp of the Heartless forever.

"One last thing to do. Let's head back to where we first got here, Lambda."

With one last look at the cage, Lambda nodded and grasped Riku's shoulder. They both vanished in a burst of Darkness.

 **BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB**

 _A lonely bedroom..._

The boy known in ALO as Meteor laid back on his bed. By now, Riku and Lambda would have finished what they came for, so they were probably gone. He hadn't had a chance to say goodbye to them. Meeting them wasn't a waste, though. The boy had received a notification on his tablet; an enormous sum of Yrd had been transferred to Meteor's account from the administrative team, in recognition of his initiative and swift response to the recent crisis.

ALO's server would be down for emergency maintenance until the next day, but when he could log back in, Meteor planned to buy a more durable sword that would be able to withstand his signature move, and maybe catch up with a few of the officers that seemed nice while he fought alongside them in the coalition. Seeing Riku's resolve and skill had instilled Meteor with the confidence to try again at making a name for himself in ALO. Maybe one day, that confidence would help him in the real world, too.

The boy closed his eyes and fell asleep, dreaming of awesome finishing moves.

 **BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB**

 _Back to square one..._

Riku and Lambda reappeared back in the forest where they'd first stumbled into the world of ALfheim Online. As Riku had hoped, the Dark Corridor he had used was still there, thrumming and pulsing ominously. With sure steps, he took Lambda's hand and strode through.

 **BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB**

 _Twilight Town: Computer Room..._

Riku stumbled out the other side of the Dark Corridor, pulling Lambda along with him. That trip felt different than usual - the pulling sensation of falling in and out of the Realm of Darkness was rougher and lasted longer. Riku took it as a good sign, and raised his Keyblade one more time.

The beam of Light shot at the Dark Corridor. Rather than glow, fade, or disperse into sparkles when the beam made contact, the wavering of the Darkness instantly stopped. The Dark Corridor appeared frozen in time, with the consistency of a purple-black pane of glass. Also like glass, it shattered into hundreds of shards. Unlike glass, the shards vanished when they hit the ground.

Riku's posture slumped in relief. "Thank goodness! I don't know what I could have done if this hunch turned out to be wrong like I usually am." His Keyblade vanished in a swirl of blue, white, and black as the threat was ended.

Practically as a formality, Riku raised his hand and tried to re-summon Way to Dawn, but Soul Eater appeared instead. Riku wasn't worried, though. "I'll get it back one day...someday soon. In the meantime, do you want to get some ice cream, Lambda?"

Lambda gave a mighty yawn, unable to dredge up the energy to comment about their latest adventure. " I'd rather go to sleep, honestly..."

"Ha, yeah. Let's get some rest. The worlds' peril can wait until tomorrow, for once."

The pair retired to the bed in the Colored Room, where they found a sketch from...who else? Namine.

It was a block-letter message surrounded by stylized ones and zeroes. "Congratulations!"

"...I guess the outcome was never really in doubt, huh? Well, good night, Riku."

"Good night, Lambda."

 **BBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBBB**

 _A/N: Aaaand DONE!_

 _Edit: FierceDeityMask tells me in his review that I should share the inspiration for the Elder Bladewyrm. The boss is based on a certain raid boss from the_ Monster Hunter _series called Disufiroa. It's apparently an utterly unique dragon, even in a world with enough dragons to have "Dragon" as an elemental power. This Heartless looks similar to Disufiroa, but has an entirely different set of attacks and weaknesses._

 _A tiny bit of epilogue has been added to wrap up Meteor's part in the plot._


End file.
